Page 55 of Ashborne Phoenix

Quiet

~ GRACE ~

My nerves fluttered as I slipped out from behind the curtains, still eyeing the door warily. I knew he’d locked it, but it felt vulnerable, knowing people had found us here and we couldn’t know if they had a view of the room.

Voski stood at the center of the room, scanning the floor and furniture, his brows pinched down over his nose, muttering to himself.

I hurried to him and wrapped my arms around him. He embraced me, held me tightly. But he didn’t stop scanning the room. “…I cleared the trail. It makes no sense. Even if she knew about the passageways, she’d have believed we didn’t pass in this direction. But if she didn’t follow us that way, how did she find out? Did I leave a trail, somehow?”

“Will you bathe with me?” I asked in a whisper, craning my head back to stare up at him. He blinked and looked down, stroking my hair. “Soon. I just need to figure this out. But you get in.”

I felt sad, but tried not to show it. I knew why he was anxious. But I’d really hoped we would have more hours alone before the reality crashed back in. So, I hugged him. And when he let me go to walk the walls, knocking and scrutinizing even the tiniest spot on the wall, or behind a painting frame, I turned for the bath.

The water was scalding hot. It took minutes to get both feet into the bottom of the tub and stand there, the skin on my lower legs turning a bright pink in response to the intense heat. Voski continued his muttering and scanning and knocking while I slowly worked my way into the water, then finally eased myself all the way under the hot surface, and leaned back against the higher end of the tub. I let out a little sigh, and it was as if the small noise was a gunshot in the room.

Voski whirled toward me, his eyes now wide, and went still. He scanned me, from the braid in my hair that I’d twisted up to keep it out of the water, to my naked breasts now floating on the bath’s surface, to my waist, and the swell of hips and thighs under the water.

He blinked, and it was like he came out of a trance.

“Fuck the passages,” he muttered, then strode toward me. I smiled at the sudden simmer of heat in him that reached me through the bond—then beamed when he tugged his unbuckled belt free, and shoved his trousers off, nudging me forward in the bath so he could step in behind me.

When he finally rested against the high back, he pulled me against him, and reached out easily for the soap and washrag lying on the small stool that one of the servants had left.

His arms were so long, he could curl forward and reach my knees, which were up, his soapy hands slowly sliding up my thighs, then following every curve of my torso, until he reached my breasts, where he stopped, taking the weight of them, one in each hand, and stroking the sides with his thumbs.

His breath grew louder in my ear.

Desire fluttered in my belly as well. I glanced at the door to make certain we wouldn’t have any more visitors, then I arched, pressing my breasts up, out of the water completely, biting my lip when his wet thumbs slid up and over my nipples.

“Grace,” he said hoarsely.

“Yes?”

“Would you mind… turning around. Sitting in my lap… facing me?”

I smiled and nodded. As I sat forward to grasp the edges of the bath and pull myself to my feet, he slipped his hands to my hips, steadying me, looking up at me when I turned, and straightening his legs.

Gripping his shoulders, I positioned my feet on either side of his knees, then lowered myself to straddle him.

His eyes grew heavy and he gave a dark smile as he grasped my ass and pulled me forward, up his thighs, until he’d pressed me right up against his hard length, and my breath caught, more for the sheer audacity of him.

But then, just when I thought he might kiss me, his expression went serious and his shoulders slumped. He reached past me for the cloth and soap, then lathered it up and began to clean me—gently, but without the slow, seductive strokes he’d been using moments before.

“What’s wrong?” I whispered. “Apart from the obvious.”

He searched my eyes. “I don’t want to press you to be intimate when we don’t know if there are people watching.”

He looked down at the soap and cloth, rubbing them together, then reached around to scrub my back, gently pulling my braid forward so it wouldn’t get soapy.

I bit my lip. I had no desire to offer a show. But did I really think his mother stood somewhere in the walls watching? No… he would have found the peephole. I had no doubt he’d examined this room thoroughly before choosing it.

That meant, at worst, there might be eavesdroppers in the hallway.

As he pressed against my back, scrubbing the soap up and down my spine, I reached up to wrap my arms around his neck, and leaned into his ear. ‘What if we’re very quiet?’

He went still. I smiled, then kissed the stubble along his jaw.

‘I don’t think they’re watching—your mother was looking around too much, as if familiarizing herself with the room when she entered. They might be listening. But we could just be certain they have nothing to hear,’ I murmured to him through the bond, kissing my way to his ear, then laving that with the tip of my tongue, as he’d done to me the night before, sending shivers all the way down to my knee.